Report: Cheating Is Becoming A Big Problem In Online Gaming

In the gaming industry there is a sub-economy for cheaters. They can purchase all kinds of digital tools to get around game rules, and even modified code to acquire special powers, like maximum vision or accuracy for shooters, or magic bullets that turn around corners. How prevalent is this problem, and why is it so?

A new study by Irdeto, a cybersecurity services firm for the media and entertainment industry, provides some novel revelations about the problem. The company surveyed 9,436 consumers and online gamers in China, Germany, Japan, South Korea, UK, and the US.

Whether socially accepted, tolerated, or induced, cheating behavior is now massive, according to the survey. A total of 37% of gamers confessed to cheating (3% "always", 9% "often", 13% "sometimes", and 12% "rarely"). And given there was no incentive compatible mechanism in the survey to ellicit full honesty (other than the option "prefer not to say" which is like pleading the 5th), I am going to bet it's higher than 40%.

Global Irdeto survey 2018 on cheating in online gaming.Irdeto

Perhaps what drives online gamers to cheat is the fallacy that the digital world is not real, the same one that drives many to consume pirated content, thinking they are just innocently watching content for free, yet they are hurting real people including emerging artists. And in gaming, there is a particularly odd viral effect, when a losing player realizes he or she must cheat to beat the cheater.

Why Consumers Care

Of the online gamers, only 12% have never had their multiplayer gaming experience negatively impacted by other players cheating. In other words, about 9 in 10 players have had a negative experience because of cheaters.

Not surprisingly, 76% of respondents also stated that it is important for them that multiplayer games online are secured against players with unfair advantages. “Gamers across the globe clearly feel that they are not being sufficiently protected against cheating and malicious plugins.” said Rory O’Connor, Irdeto's Senior VP of Cybersecurity Services.

Why Gaming Companies Should Care

“Cheating in multiplayer online games is a growing problem,” said Doug Lowther, CEO, Irdeto. “It has the potential to not only impact other gamers around the world, but also poses a big challenge for game publishers. If cheaters are allowed to prosper, the impact on other players can subsequently lead to lower game traffic and shrinking revenues.” That is, dissatisfied gamers will increasingly defect to games where there is less cheating, and cheaters will divert funds to buy cheating tools that they could otherwise use to buy legitimate powers.

Is There a Solution?

Cheating in gaming should be addressed from multiple fronts if possible. For the piracy problem, I have argued that you have to attack both supply (technical and legal deterrants against pirates) and demand (educate consumers about the adverse consequences of piracy and offer competitive options).

However, it is hard to attack cheating in gaming from the demand side. To educate gamers, making the case that cheating has adverse consequences is not easy because the most visible one to the cheater is an improved chance of winning. It is, of course, at the expense of the disadvantaged losers, but it's a game, so even if cheaters know it's wrong, they may just not perceive major damage to others.

So perhaps the best bet to combat cheating in gaming is to attack it from the supply side, by making it technically difficult for cheaters to incorporate cheating tools, and by combating cheating tool sites. The problem is that, with no easy solution on the demand-side, security strategies against gaming hackers need to be pretty sophisticated to succeed.

A big challenge for the gaming sector is ahead to buck the cheating trend, before this behavior becomes the name of the game. Technical security solutions seem like a viable avenue for gaming companies to pursue, but I wonder if it will be enough.

I am an Associate Professor of information systems, Executive Director of the Institute for Entertainment, Sports, Media, and Culture, and Director of the Center for Applied Research at Pepperdine's Graziadio School of Business. I have a PhD in Information and Decision Scien...